


Faint Deeds and Hollow Welcomes

by TenMinutesLater



Category: Godzilla (2014), Godzilla - All Media Types, Godzilla: King of The Monsters (2019), Kong: Skull Island (2017), MonsterVerse - Fandom
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen, Sporadic Updates
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-10-11
Packaged: 2021-03-04 19:01:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25411276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TenMinutesLater/pseuds/TenMinutesLater
Summary: Diana has lived on an artificial outpost supporting the growth of an Anguirus clone for as long as she can remember. When that Anguirus grows deathly ill, and with her support network cut off, she'll journey to Skull Island and into the Hollow Earth to try and save her companion.
Relationships: Anguirus & Original Female Character, Madison Russell & Mark Russell, Madison Russell & Original Characters
Comments: 4
Kudos: 4





	1. Growth

_There rolls the deep where grew the tree._  
_O earth, what changes hast thou seen!_  
_There where the long street roars, hath been_  
_The stillness of the central sea._

_The hills are shadows, and they flow_  
_From form to form, and nothing stands;_  
_They melt like mist, the solid lands,_  
_Like clouds they shape themselves and go._

_But in my spirit will I dwell,_  
_And dream my dream, and hold it true;_  
_For tho' my lips may breathe adieu,_  
_I cannot think the thing farewell._

-Alfred, Lord Tennyson

All I do anymore is look at photographs, really. Pictures of me and Rexy when we were both still young, when Rexy was healthy. My father took them, on grainy Polaroid - no outside technology in the outpost. They've gotten faded and creased over the years.

There's me as a baby, sitting up and smiling in the curled tail of Rexy. Rexy is one year old and twice the size of a human. Rexy is thin and scaly then - I named her that a couple years later, when I really thought every Titan was a Tyrannosaurus Rex, more or less. She was bred from Anguirus, but with her genes modified. Same back ridges and head, same intensely quick smarts - same five brains - but slimmer and sleeker. Northern American dino as a Chinese dragon.

There’s another photo, me as a toddler, de facto trainer of Rexy. I have a silly little explorer’s hat, that’s still too big for me, hanging down over the top of my face. I’m carrying a little whip - I never touched Rexy with it, we just used the noise for behavioral reinforcement. Rexy is standing right next to me, and you can almost imagine she’s posing for the picture too, like she knows how. Being able to look in the eyes of a creature ten times larger than you, command it to sit with the crack of a whip, and see it respond - is something else. Especially for a four year old.

The photos of me at ages six through nine are too numerous to count. We used to talk about it as my “Titan phase” - as if I ever grew out of it. There are pictures of me pretending to eat alongside her (I never want to be that close to a recently killed goat again), of me playing fetch and even tug-of-war with her (attaching my side to an ATV isn’t cheating, no matter what Rexy tells you), even riding her, like she was just a horse. My favorite is this super-staged photo of me planting an exaggerated kiss on her cheek. I swear Rexy is blushing in it, with her long body all curled up and eyes lowered.

A funny thing is I remember my parents teasing me about how Rexy was a girl. “If this is how you treat Rexy, we’d hate to have a boy around here.” That it was a massive Titan which could eat me at any moment if it had a lapse of judgment - that didn’t seem to factor into it. Maybe that had just been priced in since birth. And staging the whole photo was mostly their idea, anyway.

The photos get less and less common in the next few years. I didn’t spend less time with Rexy, really - what else would I spend time doing in the outpost? - but we documented it less and less, and we stopped the cheesy photo shoots and ridiculous safety gambles like clambering all over her. She deserved some peace of mind and some rest, so I mostly stuck to her feeding and exercise/play schedule while resigning myself to my room, where I read and watched movies and connected to the spotty outpost internet as frequently as I could.

That was also when my parents started to grow distant, so maybe that’s why there’s less. They weren’t ever completely unavailable. I could ask Dad for homework help, still (worst thing about life on a Titan outpost: they still make you do homework, somehow) and every now and then Mom would actually ask what I wanted for dinner.

And then when I was thirteen, they decided I was suitably self-sufficient, set up a debit account for whenever I needed to order more food, and they left to pursue more “innovative” and “exciting” Titan research than watching the same one grow for years on end. I’ve spoken to them about once a month in the year since, and for some of those months, that’s only if you count text messages.

Rexy is sick now, and hasn’t left the cave long since established as her home base in what is stretching into months. She used to galavant about the lush trees and run all over the exercise equipment we had made for her (think playgrounds and jungle gyms, but unthinkably huge). Mom and Dad had connections for things like this, back when they were still around. A couple texts, maybe a few weeks of intensive research, and an expensive (but tax refundable!) purchase later and Rexy would be healed - after you managed to subdue her and forcibly feed her disgusting liquids, of course. Which is harder than it sounds, even if it sounds pretty hard.

But Mom and Dad barely even respond to my texts, and even if they did, Monarch grant funding is drastically lowered when you’re not doing novel research on the Titan located in an outpost. With my parents out of the picture, I’m just in maintenance mode here and definitely wouldn’t qualify for the sort of intensive study money needed to get a workable solution in time.

I’ve had to take it upon myself to scour the archives of the outpost’s administrative building for any hints and theories I could dream up. The search hasn’t yielded much at all so far, except that Titan healing research always seems to point to one place: Skull Island. And if you believe the more crackpot members of the Monarch forums (if you can be any more crackpot than anyone else posting to the world’s largest giant city-destroying monster fansite), not just Skull Island, but the Hollow Earth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and please leave any feedback you feel is appropriate! More familiar characters are to come in future chapters, I promise!


	2. Routine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diana contacts some friends and tends to Rexy, as she does every day.

I awake to my bed shaking beneath me and a low guttural groan vibrating the entire building. I look at my alarm clock and notice I overslept by two hours. But Rexy never oversleeps, and her belly has started to grumble. I struggle my way out of the prison of blankets I had twisted myself into over the course of the night and shuffle along the floor in my fluffy house shoes. I make a mild attempt to tame the staticky tendrils of my bedhead, but if there’s one key perk of outpost life, it’s that no one critiques your appearance.

Before I head out, I stop at my computer and tell the Outpost Orphans™ Group Chat about my plans to help Rexy. That chatroom has been around for years and it’s the closest thing I have to friends that are my age. Turns out being the only half a dozen children in the world raised in artificial environments designed to grow gigantic monsters is a very unique bonding experience, even if you only ever meet virtually.

**rexy’s mom** : i need to travel to skull island

**carlos** : come on in, the water’s fine

Carlos has the distinct honor of living in an outpost stationed more-or-less smack in the middle of Skull Island itself. The rest are a little more isolated.

**mad(die) dog** : i think dad and i are headed that way too, actually, what’s up?

**rexy’s mom** : everything i read online points to skull island  
hollow earth specifically  
there are these uh  
irradiated pellets with healing properties  
the forums call them serizawa stones

**mitchell.granthan** : the Sankara stones? Surely you don’t believe that old myth, Dr. Jones?

**mad(die) dog** : smh

**mitchell.granthan** changed their username to **100% that mitch**

**mad(die) dog** : monarch should be able to get you over here if you apply for a flight. dad and i will co-sign anything you need us to, i’ll make sure of it

The outpost for Anguirus is completely artificial, a bubble of the perfect mix of fauna and foliage to support that single creature and little else. There was nowhere else on Earth that was naturally sustainable for it, so I basically spend all my days in a glorified terrarium. It’s not so bad because my house is perfectly normal, a cozy little thing like you might find in any given suburb, and I spend basically all my time there.

But once you walk out of the door, you’re in a dense jungle overrun with vines and trees. Artificial light is pumped in through blinding bulbs at the roof of the complex, and by the time it filters its way down through all the overgrowth, there’s just a faint enough glow on the paths to find your way, even in the middle of the day. Thousands of imported insect species - a melange from everywhere in the world - chirp and buzz and hum for a million different reasons at hundreds of volumes. Every now and then, if you keep an eye out, you see one of the mammals or reptiles stocked in the location shamble by you. The birds tend to be too high up in the treetops for more than passing sightings.

Yes, some of those animals are so that Anguirus has prey, but Rexy mostly relies on humans - just me, at this point - to feed her daily anyway. The reality is that they were all carefully selected to maintain the precise artificial balance of a uniquely constructed environment. The ramifications of adding or taking away one species could be immense, and the mix the scientists arrived at took years of experimentation to determine.

I walk over to the shed kept by the house and kick open the door. I take the bucket we keep just inside and slop in piles of raw ground red meat housed in a cooler in the back. Monarch sends us this stuff on a schedule as long as we renew our subscription to it, but because they service so many different outposts, we have a lot of powders and medicines and other chemicals we grind into it ourselves to make a nice healthy meat cocktail for Rexy.

I sling the bucket of meat carefully over my shoulder using the strap I affixed to it a long time ago, so that I don’t have to worry about it as I continue my trek towards Rexy’s cave. Rexy has free range of the outpost, but the cave she calls her home is deliberately far away from where I stay in the home. To get there on the ground is an ambitious hike that could take literally hours. The carved out path is circuitous, and any shortcut you might imagine too densely grown to be viable.

I arrive at the base of a thick, tall tree and grab hold of the ladder rung bored into it, clambering my way up until I arrive at the top. From here, I see stretching out into the distance the long metal walkway built between two trees, a straight line only accessible by ladder on either side that nearly trivializes the walk to Rexy. The important precaution is that Rexy can’t get to it. Behind me are the tops of the other human buildings, like the library and archives, and the tip of the watchtower poking out even higher than I am standing. Ahead of me there is little but the rest of the forest, with a clearing here or there revealing a shed or a playplace.

I have taken this walk everyday for nearly a dozen years. Each time, I still look around at the trees and bugs and birds with sort of awe at them. There are thousands of species at my fingertips, all in support of one massive creature. The fresh, clipped grass smell is impossible to ignore. Some days my focus shifts, and those tend to be the ones where I burn my eyes on the sky lights like a kid during an eclipse. Today, my mind wanders and thinks about what the Earth below me looks like. There’s a tunnel system dug below the outpost. It’s so detached from the rest of the structure it’s hard to understand where everything on top is in relation to the rooms of the tunnels. I think, standing in the middle of the walkway, that I’m probably just above the room with the snack vending machine. Only my family has ever lived here, and we have no idea why the snack vending machine is there.

Rexy’s cave has a wide opening made of weathered gray rock. There’s a small chamber that lets light in at the front, and then delving further back you arrive where Rexy sleeps, an all but entirely dark chamber with a few stalagmites climbing up at the back. Rexy has remained in there today, which is unusual for her, but doesn’t surprise me considering her condition.

I dump out the meat right in front of her, but she doesn’t react. I pet along the front part of her neck that I can reach, feeling one of her ivory spikes. I walk around to the side of her - a longer journey than you might be imagining - and pet across a small section of her belly that isn’t flat on the ground. Finally reacting to me, she grumbles as my hand moves along her. I feel a tough lump, and as I press harder on it to investigate, Rexy’s back limbs seize up, going on edge. I pull my hand back and then Rexy lets out a huge burp, and the knot I had found visibly deflates.

Now awake, Rexy lightly lifts her head before laying it back down nearer to the meat, stretching out her slitted tongue. She lazily licks the pile, exerting no other effort. Titans are not exactly prone to gastro-intestinal distress, and Rexy is typically chipper to be fed, even in recent weeks. She was sick before, but something is going wrong fast.

When I get home, I start to look for the next Monarch flight I can get to Skull Island, while the back of my mind races to figure out how to keep Rexy stable while I’m gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you again for reading this far and I appreciate whatever feedback you have! The next chapter will see the adventure starting in earnest.


	3. Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Diana joins up with Madison and Mark Russell and their friend Carlos to seek out the entrance to the Hollow Earth supposedly located at Skull Island.

“So how does one, you know, get inside a Hollow Earth?” I ask. I’m on the coast of Skull Island, looking towards the lush greenery and complicated rock formations of its face. I’ve just grouped up with Madison, her father, and Carlos.

“No idea,” Carlos responds, “I live here and figured it was a myth myself until just a couple of years ago.” 

I set up plenty of meat in Rexy’s cave for while I’m gone, and made sure she was actually eating it before I left. Considering she doesn’t even move from that spot right now, the pile I provided near her should surely be enough.

“That’s actually why Dad and I headed out here,” Madison says. “We have a lead of some kind, and-”

“Access to the Hollow Earth itself would revolutionize Human-Titan relations in ways we can’t practically imagine right now,” Mark interrupts. “Any evidence we have for where to get to it is evidence I’m interested in tracking as far as possible.”

“It’s under us, right?” Carlos says. “Like if the Hollow Earth is real, and the Hollow Earth can house ginormous monsters, and Skull Island is an entrance to it... It’s under us. Like I’m not crazy to say that, right?”

“Great idea, Carlos, can’t believe no one ever tried that one,” Mark replies. “I’ve been given a native contact on the island.” He points slightly to the right. “They should live just past that formation. It’ll be a bit of a trek, but it should go alright.”

\---

By the time we make it over the crest of the formation, I am swearing to myself to start a daily squat routine so that my thighs never experience pain like this again. The worst part is knowing how likely it is that the day has just begun. 

Mark’s contact is an island native with a richly painted face. Bright shocks of blue and orange seem to swirl on his visage, and streaks of stark white run from his neck to beneath his eyes. He approaches crouched, limbs wide and a staff in one hand, like someone always ready to defend himself. I would be too if my only outside contacts were hostile monsters and foreign white people. Maybe I repeat myself.

Mark utters something in the native language and the tribesman stands down. They converse amicably as the rest of just glance at each other with no idea what is developing. I hear the tribesman say “Mark” enough, and Mark respond “Sigaru” enough, that I start to assume the native man’s name is Sigaru. Sigaru and Mark mix a lot of gestures into their movements; Mark moreso, as the language is on Sigaru’s playing field and Mark seems to struggle occasionally to keep up.

The conversation dies down for a bit. “He says that deeper into the island there’s a hole and it leads to the Hollow Earth.”

“So...” Carlos begins, “He’s saying it’s under us.”

Mark sighs. “Yes, he’s saying it’s under u--”

Sigaru grabs something rope like near his belly and shakes it towards our group. It’s painted the same vibrant colors as his skin where it meets his body, but as it continues on behind him it turns into a pale transparent flesh with streaks of brown running through it.

“Is that,” Madison begins, seeming about to retch in the middle, “an umbilical cord?”

Sigaru commands something in his own language. “He’s saying grab,” Mark translates. “And follow.”

Mark walks behind Sigaru and wraps his hand around an unpainted stretch of the cord and winces as he feels it. He beckons us over with a twist of his head. “What are you waiting for?” 

I join Mark in grabbing the tentacle. It’s soft and velvety, squishy, slightly wet, and absolutely stomach-churning to hold. Carlos and Madison pull up the rear. “So, as long as you guys are holding it, I don’t really need to, right?” Carlos asks. “Like, we know where it is. I can walk alongside you.”

“We’ll take shifts,” Mark decides.


End file.
